PMC
by Undead Raptor
Summary: My vision of the next Grand Theft Auto game. Set in 2017 in which ultracorporations now wield almost unlimited power, a new type of warfare has emerged. Kestrel is an agent in the war between the Eclipse and Cerberus corporations. But in a war motivated purely by wealth and the greed of the 1%, all is not as it seems. Please review. Warning: Strong language
1. How To Be Promoted

_P.M.C  
__Samuel E. Paxton_

Chapter I:  
How To Be Promoted

"Kestrel? You hear me mate?" came an all too familiar northern England voice into my ear. I poked my finger into my ear to readjust the tiny silver chip embedded in it so I could hear him better. These things weren't supposed to come loose.  
"Loud and clear Jake" I replied, a hint of annoyance in my voice. Jake, the cunning vocal expert he was, quickly detected it.  
"You sound happy" he said dryly, though I imagined he was saying it with his trademark grin that gave away his cockiness.  
"Well, you know, jetlag and all. I swear, why're we getting dragged out into the middle of nowhere to-" I began but Jake interrupted.  
"Because it's important! And FYI little Miss Scarlett, don't call Chicago the middle of nowhere."  
"Never heard of it" I said sarcastically, putting on a fake yawn. I looked out of the taxi window as I said it, watching the city streets with half interest.  
"You wouldn't, you don't pay attention to anything. That's why you weren't sent to help those Syrian rebels five years ago like I was" retorted Jake. He had a style in the way he talked that always let you know whether or not he was just playing around with you. This he was doing now.  
"That was back in 2012! I was new" I replied, putting some fake anger into my voice. Jake would probably have responded with some witty comeback, but someone else cut in on their conversation. It was Malcolm Smith; our boss.  
"Do you guys think you could ease off the sexual tension for a bit and focus on the assassination I'm paying you for?" he asked in his heavy Scottish accent. Not a word he said was supposed to be a joke, it was all said in his characteristic cold and malicious manner that made him seem like a wolf with human DNA. Contrary to Malcolm's comments, I hadn't forgotten why we were here; an assassination contract. Jake, Malcolm and I all worked for the multinational corporation known as Cerberus. Our rival company, Eclipse, was presenting their Technology Innovation Demonstration at a small building specially made for such events, creatively named the Technology Innovation Demonstration Centre. A small convention to demonstrate brand new military technologies developed by Eclipse, never seen before by the public. The man hosting it would be one Nikolai Fyodorov. A remarkable man from the Russian Federation and I had already read up on him. He'd lived in the Soviet Union before escaping the Eastern Bloc for America. There he joined Eclipse and became the director of their Private Security Branch. This was a chance for Cerberus to take him down and Eclipse, our closest rival, would lose one of their best and we might be able to get an edge on them.

My taxi bumped up onto the curb before braking quickly, almost lurching me into the driver's seat. The driver failed to hold back a snigger and muttered "Sorry" while eyeing me in the rear view mirror. The taxi quickly came to a halt, the left wheels on the pavement while the right ones stayed stuck to the tarmac of the road. I looked through the window and on the opposite side of the road was the Technology Innovation Demonstration Centre. Fyodorov, me target, was in there. But clearly so were a lot of people. Two bouncers guarded the entrance to the building while a long queue of people winded to the next building across. This was a highly exclusive event. I breathed slowly and opened the door of the taxi before stepping out into the warm air of the city, though almost spluttering as the fumes of passing cars filled my nose. I slammed the door and briskly walked to the pavement, still watching the opposite side of the street and the building where the demonstration was taking place. I heard the gruff voice of the taxi driver, evidently a twenty a day smoker, as he leaned out the open window of his yellow car and called to me.  
"Hey! Thirty two dollars bitch!" he shouted, a cigar sticking from his mouth like an ugly brown tongue.  
"Sue me, asshole" I said to myself as I kept walking without looking. In the corner of my eye I could see him lean back into the car, muttering expletives to himself before driving back onto the road. However he made sure to make it look like he was trying to run me over before changing course at the last second back onto the road. I let out a strong kick on the rear left door of the yellow taxi as it passed, leaving a hefty dent in it. I could just make out the driver yelling "Mother fucker!" in response to my kick, but he kept driving.  
I knew I wouldn't be getting into the building through the entrance, though not because I couldn't take the bouncers. I just couldn't risk alerting anyone, or Fyodorov would run off.

"Kestrel in position" I said, my earpiece transmitting my voice to Malcolm and Jake. A split second later I heard Jake say the same about himself.  
"Gwen in position" came a distinct Welsh voice. The pale skinned, black haired Gwen was lying flat on the roof of a high rise building about half a mile away, watching the building with a silenced AW50 sniper rifle. She would be our overwatch for this mission, providing sniper support.  
All the way in New York, Malcolm was stood in the Command Room at the Cerberus Operations Command. By now a number of major corporations had their own professional military wings to deal with competitors. A new type of corporate warfare had emerged in the last few years.  
Malcolm was stood watching the wall, which was covered in paper thin Ultra High Definition television screens showing various happenings in and around the target building, which had been codenamed "WARSAW." One screen was showing live footage from a Cerberus MQ-19 Grey Falcon unmanned aerial vehicle that was orbiting high above WARSAW, streaming live footage of the building. The MQ-19 was a quadrotor design with four rotors that allowed it incredible speed and agility through the air. Its Ultra High Definition camera streamed UHD footage straight back to Cerberus Command.  
Another screen showed a CNN news reporter in front of the building, talking about the predictions that corporate analysts had made about what would be on show. Malcolm watched with his arms crossed as people all around him worked on laptops, all focusing on this one operation. Voices filled the room as the operators communicated with agents in the field throughout Chicago. Malcolm was focused on the live streaming images coming from the MQ-8.  
"Alright people, how're we looking?" he asked without taking his eyes off the screens.  
"Agents in position, area is locked down. Ready when you are sir" responded one of the people working a laptop. Malcolm went onto all channels as he communicated through his ear piece.  
"All callsigns, we are mission launch. I say again, mission is a go" he said and at that, Jake immediately contacted me.  
"Alright K, what's your plan?" he asked. I had already figured it all out.  
"Well, I'll have a look at the front door but there's not really a chance of getting in there. But there's a fire escape on an apartment building nearby. I can climb that and get access from the roof" I told him. After a couple of seconds, which Jake was likely using to assess my response, he replied.  
"Alright, sounds good to me. Just don't hurt yourself" he said slyly. I suppressed a smirk.  
"I wouldn't give you the pleasure" I replied, before Malcolm came onto comms again.  
"We've got an MQ-19 watching the area, we'll be able to know if there's any Eclipse cunt heading your way" he told us. Swearing was a bit more than just a habit for Malcolm.

Just as I was about to cross the street I checked myself in the wing mirror of a parked car. Thankfully the taxi ride, which didn't seem to have any suspension whatsoever, hadn't turned my hair into a complete mess. I'm a girl. My hair's important. It was naturally black but with purple highlights at the ends. It was also spiky, reminding me somewhat of the kind of hairstyles a lot of female characters in Japanese anime have. It went surprisingly well with my business trousers and black jacket. Just as I crossed the street I noticed a figure standing atop the target building. No doubt he was Eclipse security, but that wasn't what worried me. What worried me was the fact that he was holding a G36C assault rifle with a magnified reflex sight. Clearly Fyodorov knew it was a risk to be here and wasn't taking any chances with his security. Too bad I was just so damn good. Previous experience had shown that a few Eclipse gunmen, armed or not, could easily be dropped with the correct amount of ordinance.  
I reached the pavement outside the building, keeping an eye on the bouncer guarding the front door. The reporter was still going on about the event, while a long line of unimportant looking people snaked its way down the street, each hoping to gain entry. I walked past the building, neglecting to show any interest in it. The bouncer was too busy arguing on his phone to take any notice of the queue of people, let alone some random girl walking past him. I continued past several buildings before making an abrupt turn into a tight alley, between two stores. I checked the alley for anyone, but the only person there besides me was a bearded hobo in a leather jacket, laying against the wall with his legs sprawled out and covered in beer cans. I had to look at him twice to check if he was alive, but he opened his eyes weakly and smiled at me so I turned and kept walking down the alley. Once I reached the end I came across a fire escape ladder that climbed the rear of a brick apartment building, which was itself about ten storeys high. I climbed atop a green dumpster, which made its contents inside rattle, before leaping from it onto the bottom section of the fire escape. Pulling myself up, I climbed onto the fire escape and made my way up. Once I'd reached a height that was parallel to the roof of the nearest building, I slowly climbed onto the railing that was meant to stop people falling off the side of the ladder system to their deaths. Balancing precariously on the thin metal bars I kept my eyes fixed on the roof I was trying to get to. "Fuck it" I said to myself, and made a leap of faith from the fire escape onto the rooftop of the nearby building. As I was in the air I looked down for a fraction of a second, saw the floor of the alley and realised that if I screwed this jump up there was no doubt that floor would become my grave. Right next to the hobo who was watching me curiously while still lying against the wall. But miraculously the screw up didn't happen and I landed on the roof, though almost tripping over once I landed. I let out a sigh of relief, though something told me that wouldn't be the stupidest thing I'd do today.

Seeing the rooftop of WARSAW opposite the building I was currently on, I headed towards it briskly. The Chicago skyline was clearly visible on the other side of the Chicago River. The only high rise buildings near where I was were the white and silver office and apartment buildings, symbols of the nine to five life. A life I'd always been terrified of getting, so I joined Cerberus Corporation, one thing led to another and now I'm an assassin. As is the way life works.  
I was lucky that there wasn't another alleyway dividing WARSAW from the building I was currently on, but my luck could only run so far. There were two well armed guards on the roof of WARSAW. One was the guy I'd seen already, armed with a G36C with reflex sight. He wore a black polo shirt with a black bulletproof vest over it and was watching the road, which was good for me since I wasn't in his peripheral. The other guy was wearing a balaclava that covered his entire face except his eyes, and held a matte black FN P90 submachine gun with a Ring Sights MC-10-80 reflex sight. On the end of the barrel was also a black suppressor. These guys were packing some serious equipment. On the centre of the roof was a tiny room with a door that likely contained a staircase into the building. I couldn't get close to the guards without risking alerting one of them, and it'd jeopardise the entire operation if I alerted one. I remembered that Gwen was still providing overwatch half a mile away and without a doubt had a clear shot of the roof.  
"Gwen? You hear me?" I asked and her voice quickly responded through the ear piece.  
"Got you Kestrel. This about those two guys on the roof?" she asked.  
"Yeah. Look, I don't know if I can take out one of them without the other guy seeing or hearing so-" I began but was cut off as I heard the whistle of an approaching bullet get louder and louder. Suddenly the guard with the G36C had a single sniper bullet go right through his forehead, spurting blood all over the place. A second later I watched as a second bullet hit the other guard in the neck, killing him before he hit the floor. There was about three seconds of silence before Gwen's voice came back into my earpiece, sounding a lot more pleased than she did ten seconds ago.  
"That sort everything out for you sweetie?" she asked. I didn't need to be able to see her to know she was grinning as she lay watching the entire scene through her scope.  
"Yeah, I think that might've worked. You know it would've been far cooler to take one each at the same time?" I asked her.  
"Yeah maybe" was all she had to say in response. I let it go and headed onto the WARSAW rooftop. The bodies of the two guards lay sprawled across it, blood pouring from their major wounds. After spending a few seconds marvelling at how Gwen and I had pretty much no emotive feeling for these two guys, I opened the door to find a metal staircase and headed inside. By now of course I knew there may well be danger lurking around every corner, so I reached into the inside of my jacket and pulled out my black MP7A1 submachine gun, which sported a Zeiss RSA reflex sight and a long suppressor. Even though the last thing I wanted was to start a full blown firefight in a place that was likely to be crowded with civilians, it was either that or getting gunned down the moment I'm spotted. The guards were likely on high alert.  
"Jake, I'm in. Where are you?" I asked. He was quick to respond.  
"I'm in the main room. You'd love it here Kestrel, believe me. They've got a bar and everything! Fyodorov's due to make his speech in about five minutes, so hurry up" Jake told me. I chose to take his advice and hurried along, though making sure to check every corner for signs of trouble. And then I finally found one.

As I was approaching the stairway that led to the second floor, I could hear footsteps around a nearby corner. I acted quickly and darted into the shadows, taking cover behind a brick column. Scattered all around the place were cardboard boxes in the half lit room. I had to be careful not to kick any by mistake. Behind the column, another Eclipse guard was walking. He must have heard me, as he called out.  
"Tom, that you? Thought you were s'posed to be up on the roof watching for shit that ain't gonna happen, like you said" he called. He came round the corner and I had to make my breathing as quiet as possible so he wouldn't notice that a Cerberus agent was taking cover in the shadows about ten feet away. He walked forward several paces, looking around.  
"Tom? Or is that Ralph? You guys know you're s'posed to be on the roof, I don't care how boring the shit gets. At least you can smoke without endangering the health of absolutely fucking everyone" he shouted. Clearly he had some issues and I wasn't keen to find out how well my throat would fare against his impressive biceps. I opened fire with my MP7A1, the suppressor making each shot a fraction of its normal volume. The shots tore into his back right through his jacket and he fell to the ground. I spent about thirty seconds dragging his body into the shadows to make it just a little but harder for any further security to find him, before continuing.

Placing the MP7A1 back inside my jacket to keep it hidden, I quickly descended the stairs and arrived on the second floor. Techno music being played on the bottom floor was now easily audible through the walls and it acted as a beacon for where I needed to go.  
"Kestrel, move it" came Jake's voice, sounding a little agitated.  
"It's fine Jake. I'm on the way now" I replied, passing a couple of security guards who were a little less well armed than the guys on the roof, having only black Glock 31 handguns in holsters. They also wore suits, rather than the paramilitary getup of the guys on the roof. At least Eclipse had some sense of class. However there was one security guard who held a Russian made A-91 assault rifle with an ACOG sight. Why he needed an ACOG sight in a place as close quarters as this I didn't know until I discovered that the second floor had an indoor balcony which overlooked the ground floor. On the ground floor was the main room that Jake was in. At least a hundred and fifty people were packed into it, some at the bar while others were sitting at small stool-like tables throughout the room. On the left side of the room was an empty stage, which Fyodorov would likely be making his announcement from. It was all very nifty and this balcony was the perfect place for someone with a rifle to make sure no-one caused trouble and if they did, they'd have a 7.62x39 millimetre round in the side of their head.

I headed down the last staircase and reached the main room. It was swarming with people and the techno music and chatter filled the air. I reached the bar and found Jake sitting there already. It was hard to miss him with his spiked up dark blond hair and Newcastle accent. Not exactly the most common voice type in Chicago.  
"Drinking on the job eh?" I asked as I pulled up a stool next to him.  
"Helps my aim" he replied as the bartender served him two white wines. "Here, I bought you a drink" he told me, holding out one of the glasses for me. I took it and looked at him, an eyebrow raised.  
"Since when did I drink?" I asked him as he started sipping on his own wine.  
"If I'd known you didn't drink I wouldn't of bought you one. There's a first time for everything" he told me and I nodded. After inspecting the contents of the glass like a child, much to Jake's amusement, I finally tasted it. It was good, better than the cat piss wine I'd tried once in London's Chinatown. But I ended up downing too much at once, and spluttered. Jake chuckled as he watched.  
"Lightweight" he said, before raising his glass. "I propose a toast" he offered and in response I raised my glass too. "To murder" he said, and we clinked our glasses together.  
"And corporate espionage" I added, before drinking the rest of the wine. This time it flowed down my throat without being gagged back up. Jake checked his watch.  
"We got about a minute. I'm gonna go get myself in position, wouldn't wanna miss Fyodorov's speech would I?" he asked as he rose from his stool. I gave him the thumbs up as he made his way through the groups of people. I stayed sat on the stool, watching him move towards the stage. My attention was quickly diverted as a middle aged looking man with a handlebar moustache sat on the stool Jake had been occupying.  
"Hey honey, you alright?" he asked me with his strong northern Illinois accent. I ignored him completely. "Girl, you interested in having some fun with me once that speech is done?" he asked. I turned to him and looked him dead in the eyes.  
"Would you still ask me that if I broke every bone in your arm?" I asked him with a completely straight voice. He quickly looked away, turning his attention to the drink's cabinet at the back of the bar, and didn't look at me again. I would have tried my luck with threatening him further but my attention turned to the stage as the techno music stopped playing, giving my ear drums a well deserved break, and an Eclipse official of some sort wearing a fancy suit with a red tie came up onto the stage from the backstage area with a microphone. Everyone was quick to pay close attention to him. His voice boomed through the surround sound systems as he began to speak, silencing everyone in the room.

"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for coming to the Eclipse Corporation's Technology Innovation Demonstration" he began, which was met with applause from pretty much everyone in the crowd besides me and, from what I could see, Jake. The official continued to talk until he finally introduced "Nikolai Fyodorov, Director of Eclipse's Private Security Branch!" Fyodorov emerged from backstage to thunderous applause and I saw this as the right time to slip away from the bar and move into the crowd that had formed in front of the stage, standing near Jake. I kept one eye on the security who were now watching the crowd from pretty much all sides. I counted eight of them. As Fyodorov entered, the surround sound system started playing the chorus of the song American Idiot, which was supposedly Fyodorov's theme tune for today. At least the guy had taste. The official handed him the microphone and Fyodorov waved to the cheering crowd. He was a handsome enough man, with slick blond hair, sharp and defined features and a muscular appearance. He wore a navy stripe suit with a two button fastening and a waistcoat underneath that was also navy striped. A white shirt was visible underneath that. He also had a red tie. I noticed that Jake was now standing right next to me.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, trying to be heard over the cheering. By now Fyodorov had started speaking.  
"Thanks you everyone, it's fantastic to be here today. It's really is an honour" he started.  
"Just wait for an opportunity. We don't need to do anything during the speech, I don't fancy our chances against eight armed security guards" I told Jake as Fyodorov continued talking.  
"Come on K, we've taken more in less time" replied Jake. Neither of us were taking our eyes off Fyodorov as we talked.  
"Have a look around you at how many civilians there are. Usually it'll be a non-issue and I can deal with some collateral damage, but if we start shooting now it'll turn into a massacre. Eclipse securities are jumpy on the triggers. They hear a gunshot and they'll spray the whole crowd" I told him. Jake nodded in understanding, but we fell silent as one of the Eclipse employees wheeled something out onto the stage on a podium with wheels. It had a large white cloth over it to hide whatever it held. This had to be the special reveal Eclipse were doing.  
"This should be interesting" Jake said.  
"Quiet!" hissed a woman standing behind him, evidently distracted.  
"Shut the fuck up" replied Jake dryly without looking at her. She fell silent but with a furious look on her face. Fyodorov appeared close to revealing what was on the podium.  
"And now ladies and gentlemen, it is my greatest pleasure to unveil one of Eclipse's proudest creations, the next step in military technology..." he seized the cloth covering the podium and whisked it off. There was a great cooing amongst the audience in wonder, including with Jake. On the podium stood what looked like a metal bulletproof vest. Two dozen cameras went off in the room, bathing the bulletproof vest in white light. Fyodorov gave the audience several seconds to quieten down before he continued speaking.  
"Say hello to the NanoArmour. Eclipse has pioneered a revolution in the field of nanotechnology, which has now given rise to the first use of it for military means! This vest is 100% synthetic, made with fluid based, organic nanoweaves that make it able to withstand even fifty calibre bullets without a single dent. And this is only the beginning. We believe that within just five years we will be able to create entire battle suits for our soldiers made of this material. It's sci-fi. It's Iron Man. And it's promising. Our world is on the verge of the Second Scientific Revolution, but it will dwarf the first one a thousand times over! Welcome to the future, and the United States will lead the charge as it always has done" he concluded. There was a massive uproar of applause from the crowd with even some of the security guards clapping. Jake and I couldn't help but be impressed.  
"Guess Eclipse knows what they're doing" Jake said.  
"The sooner we deal with this guy the better. He's making Eclipse this kind of gear, he's irreplaceable" I replied.

Not far across the room, one of the security guards was watching the crowd. He wore black shades, but there was more to them than that. From his view, the high tech glasses were scanning each individual person in the crowd and accessing their internet footprint, effectively finding out everything he needed to know about them. But then he focused on me. The glasses took a second to scan me before my body was highlighted in red. The writing "KESTREL SCARLETT, KNOWN CERBERUS OPERATIVE" flashed up on the inside of the glasses. Quickly he began to move towards me, motioning to other security guards to cover him. I was completely oblivious as he barged his way through the crowd towards me until he suddenly grabbed my forearm.  
"Hey, you're coming with me sweetie-" he began but was cut off as I brought my right hand, clenched into a fist, right into his nose. I felt it break and his shades shattered, shards of the high tech glass falling to the ground. He fell backwards onto the floor, groaning in pain. Reacting immediately, Jake and I both reached into our jackets and procured Glock 24 handguns, both of us holding one in each hand. There were screams as members of the crowd either dived to take cover on the floor or parted like the Red Sea, scattering to the sides of the room leaving Jake and I standing alone in the centre of the room in a standoff against seven security guards, all of which were pointing Glock 31 handguns at us, and the guy with the rifle on the balcony was now pointing it directly towards Jake's scalp. There was silence for several seconds, broken only by my heavy breathing as I recovered from the sudden adrenaline rush of being ambushed. Then Fyodorov, still standing on the stage, broke the silence by chuckling.  
"Well, well, well. Take a good long look ladies and gentlemen at the face of the great Cerberus Corporation. Let me guess, agents? You've come to kill me haven't you? Well good luck surviving. Have a look around and notice seven barrels of seven guns pointing directly at your heads. I don't want blood spilled here so how about you two just drop your weapons and we'll deal with you with dignity" he said, a sneer cackle in his voice. Jake and I looked at each other, still watching the security guards and making sure they weren't trying to get closer. Then Jake broke the silence.  
"Oh fuck this shit!" he yelled, before firing several shots directly at the NanoArmour that still stood on the podium. The bullets hit but ricocheted right off, hitting the shiny chrome metal walls and bouncing off again and again. There were screams in the crowd of people as the bullets bounced about the room, but it also distracted the security guards long enough for Jake and I to fire four rounds that took four of them down. The remaining three guards opened fire and Jake and I just managed to dodge as bullets hit the stage, narrowly missing Fyodorov. As we returned fire, taking out two more guards who now lay lifeless on the ground, Fyodorov made a run for it and sprinted backstage. Jake and I opened fire on him with our Glocks but the bullets missed, instead hitting the wall behind him and throwing glowing orange sparks onto the floor. We were then further distracted as the A-91 wielding guard on the balcony opened fire on us, risking hitting the dozens of civilians shielding themselves on the floor. I dived behind the bar counter, the assault rifle firing in fully automatic and shattering glasses left right and centre. Some of the wine bottles shattered and threw wine right into my face.  
"Now is _not _the time to be getting hammered!" I yelled, before ducking out of cover from behind the bar counter and firing at the guard. He took cover behind a pillar to reload as I heard Gwen over my earpiece.  
"Guys, what the hell is going on!? I can hear gunfire!" she shouted. I then heard the sound of her sniper rifle going off as she spoke. Clearly she was firing on more Eclipse that were trying to get in as reinforcements. I took cover again behind the bar as the A-91 guard opened fire once more, spraying bullets in my general direction. The bartender tried to run for cover but was peppered with bullets, mistaken for me, and fell against the counter before crashing to the floor, limp and lifeless.  
"Everything that could fuck up fucked up! Fyodorov is running!" I yelled through my earpiece and it was Malcolm who responded.  
"Our drone's got him! He's on the street now, got about half a dozen guards with him! Looks like they're waiting for a pickup! Move your fucking arses!" he bellowed. I peeked out from behind the bar counter and saw the A-91 guard was taking cover again to reload. I aimed one of my handguns just a few inches left of the stone column he was behind. The moment he emerged to open fire again, I fired a single shot that sent right through his left eye. Blood spurted everywhere as he dropped the rifle, which fell from the balcony and landed on the ground floor. He stayed on his feet for a few seconds, wobbling, before falling forwards and tumbling over the railing, falling onto the ground floor just like his rifle and lying there in a crumpled heap.

"Everyone get the fuck out now!" Jake yelled to the civilians, who didn't need telling twice. There was a rush to the door as everyone ran screaming to the main exits. I ran to Jake, who beckoned for me to follow him. We jumped onto the stage and sprinted backstage, pursuing Fyodorov.  
"Malcolm said Fyodorov's on the street now; we've got a tiny fucking window to take him out!" Jake shouted as we ran through the backstage, past Eclipse employees trying to retreat out of harm's way. One Eclipse guard, dressed in a smart black suit, emerged from behind a door with a SPAS-12 combat shotgun. He fired once and it almost tore me to shreds, but the rounds instead peppered the wall with large bullet holes though I felt the rush of air as they passed by. Still running towards the guard, I fired six rounds from my Glock into his stomach and chest, each round leaving a bloody bullet hole in his white shirt and jacket. As he fells to his knees Jake and I had already ran past him, heading for the back exit.

"How the fuck did that guard know who I was?" I asked as we kept running.  
"Guess the hair's pretty recognisable!" Jake shouted back. I ran ahead of Jake as the back exit became visible. Just as I reached it and pulled it open an Eclipse operative who had been waiting for us behind the door lunged right at me. He didn't even touch me before a bullet from Gwen's sniper rifle hit him in the back of the neck and he instead fell against me. Whether he was dead or just paralysed forever I didn't both to check as I spotted Fyodorov across the street. He was climbing into the back seat of a silver Audi S6, which was already accelerating down the street before he even closed the door. We opened fire on the car but the bullets did only superficial damage, leaving bullet holes and smashing one of the brake lights. Two silver BMW M5s were escorting him, no doubt filled with heavily armed Eclipse operatives.  
"Fuck sake!" yelled Jake. "Malcolm! Get that UAV on Fyodorov's car, he's in a silver Audi S6, license plate number YTE 468" he shouted.  
"Roger, we've got him located! UAV is pursuing him now; we'll project a live feed of his location! Now get to him and rip out his fucking spine!" came Malcolm's reply and on my very vision came a waypoint that showed exactly where Fyodorov was. We top corporate agents had been specially augmented with technology to better help us carry out our missions. One such augmentation was small implants on our eyes that not only let us see in Ultra High Definition but also allowed waypoints to be beamed directly into our eyes, like having a SATNAV in your pupils. And now, with the MQ-19 beaming constant information on the location of Fyodorov's car, we could see that Fyodorov was getting away and he was getting away fast.  
Meanwhile half a mile away Gwen was packing up her sniper rifle into a small suitcase and tying it to her back.  
"I'm on him too" she said into her earpiece. She had already prepared for this situation and had a rope dangling off the roof of the building all the way down to street level. Without hesitation she grabbed it and leaned backwards off the edge of the high rise office building before abseiling off the edge with the rope. She let herself fall a couple of storeys before her feet hit the wall of the building once more. She continued this until she reached the ground, likely leaving some very surprised office workers staring out of the windows she'd just abseiling down. Waiting for her next to the building was her orange BMW G 650 motorcycle, with an Uzi with a reflex sight hidden in a small compartment. She grabbed her orange motorcycle helmet, turned on the engine and sped into the traffic in pursuit of Fyodorov.

Meanwhile back next to WARSAW, Jake and I had already figured out how we were going to get to Fyodorov. After the gunshots were fired, civilians on the streets had scattered in panic and several vehicles had been abandoned by their fleeing owners. We ignored all of them and went straight for a silver Aston Martin Virage that was standing static on the road. We both ran to it, weapons pointing at the driver.  
"Get out of the car! Get the fuck outta the car!" I yelled as the terrified driver scrambled out and ran for his life. Jake quickly got into the driver's seat as I got into the passenger seat.  
"How come you get to drive?" I asked as I reloaded my Glocks.  
"You're a women" he joked, earning a dirty look from me as the car sped off. "Malcolm, we're heading north and closing in on target, what's happening over there?" asked Jake.  
"Jake, you better be there soon and you better have a plan because they aren't fucking around. You need to either go Die Hard on them or piss off" came Malcolm's shouting reply.  
Meanwhile Gwen was weaving in and out of traffic on her bike, making a beeline towards Fyodorov and his escort cars.  
"Guys I'm closing in on Fyodorov. First one to blow up a car gets a free gold M16" she said over her earpiece, still weaving between vehicles.  
"Roger that" was all I had to say in response as our Aston Martin sped closer to Fyodorov.  
"They really should've put Hellfires or something equally explosive on that MQ-19, then this wouldn't be happening" Jake said, keeping his eyes on the road.  
"I don't think anyone expected things to fuck up this royally" I replied.  
"Heads up" came a new call from Malcolm. "Fyodorov's just headed onto Interstate 90, Kennedy Expressway. You have to hurry the fuck up!" he told us and at that Jake pressed harder on the accelerator. It wasn't long until we ascended the on-ramp onto the highway. Now Fyodorov was close ahead, and police sirens were close behind.

Finally Fyodorov's car came into view, flanked by the two silver BMW M5s.  
"Don't do anything yet" Jake warned me. "We'll trail him and see if we can get closer", which was strategy I couldn't argue with. Then, through another augment I had which allowed me to intercept transmissions, I caught a phone call going on inside Fyodorov's car.  
"Fyodorov's making a phone call, patching it through now" I said and then I, Jake, Gwen and everyone in the Cerberus command room could hear the conversation.  
_"You assured me! You assured me nothing would go wrong! That there was no risk!" _ came Fyodorov's panicked sounding voice.  
_"Perhaps I was a little economical with the risk factor, but I didn't have much of a choice" _came a second voice which I recognised instantly as Dean Spence; CEO of Eclipse Corporation. _"You're not a pawn Nikolai, trust me. You're one of the best but sometimes a general has to get in the firing line to remind people he's still fighting the war. Contact me when you're out of Chicago. I'm sending an AH-6 to give you some air cover. Cerberus won't give up straight away. Spence out" _the CEO said, and the conversation was over.   
"Did Spence just say he's sending an AH-6?" asked a wide eyed Jake.  
"He wasn't bluffing either. Radar at one of our facilities in the city centre is picking up a Little Bird signature heading your way" came Malcolm's voice.  
An AH-6 Little Bird. A fast attack helicopter that could easily kill both Joke and I. And now one was heading right for us. We never said anything but Jake and I both knew that we had to kill Fyodorov right now before that helicopter arrived. He began to speed up, closing the distance between our car and the three Eclipse vehicles.  
"Focus on the escorts first, they'll cause us the most damage" Jake told me and I nodded. With my elbow I smashed out my door's window and leaned out, the air whipping my hair as we sped down the highway, passing numerous vehicles as we easily broke the speed limit which Fyodorov and his friends were already doing. However as we got closer I realised that from the rear window of a black Hummer H2 that was driving parallel to us, two lanes to our right, had emerged the barrel of an M16A4 assault rifle. Without warning Jake, I grabbed the steering wheel and turned it sharply to the right, just as the passenger of the Hummer fired the M16A4's M203 underbarrel grenade launcher right at us.  
Thanks to swerving closer to the Hummer, the grenade just skimmed over the hood of our car and hit the highway's central divide, exploding and sending bits of concrete flying in all directions. Several civilian cars swerved out of the war to avoid the shrapnel.  
"What the hell was that?!" yelled Jake as I allowed him to regain control of the Aston Martin.  
"That Hummer, it's Eclipse too! They've got more backup than we thought!" I shouted back. Fyodorov's car was clearly speeding up, as well as his two escort cars. They knew we were here. Suddenly the Eclipse gunman inside the Hummer opened fire on us with his fully automatic rifle. The bullets sprayed everywhere, shattering the windscreen and filling the hood with holes. Both Jake and I ducked as bullets tore into the interior of the car. Jake swerved to the left to get some distance between the two vehicles before swerving back to the right as hard as he could to slam into the Hummer. However the truck was essentially a military Humvee without a machine gun and it could withstand punishment. The Aston Martin practically bounced off the Hummer and we were met with another shot by the M203 grenade launcher. By some miracle it failed to explode as it bounced off the hood of the car and into the road, where it detonated just as a civilian Fiat Punto drove over it. The front right wheel of the Fiat was torn off and replaced by a burning stump while the force of the explosion threw the car into a somersault across the road. In response I pulled my MP7A1 from my jacket and opened fire on the Hummer with the submachine gun at fully automatic, desperately hoping the shots would convince the driver to speed up or retreat. Meanwhile Fyodorov was getting further away and the Little Bird was getting closer. However my bullets were just bouncing off the Hummer; it was bulletproof.  
"That fucking Hummer's got armour plating!" I yelled as I tried to reload the MP7A1 while bullets flew past me, coming from the enemy jeep.  
"Who puts armour on a fucking Hummer?!" Jake yelled back. "Except the military."  
"Gwen, you really need to get here now!" I shouted.  
"Almost there, just try and stay alive a little longer!" came her reply. She was already on the highway, she could be here within a minute.  
"I'm managed to stay alive for the last twenty three years, I'll manage another ten minutes!" I shouted back as I finally finished reloading my MP7A1. This time I leaned right out of the window, all the while the threat of being crushed between the Aston Martin and the Hummer looming over, and unloaded the entire magazine into the Hummer's rear left tyre, which was the closest one to me. I saw it pop and rapidly deflate, soon making bumping noises every half second as the Hummer continued to speed down the highway. By now I could hear police sirens, and they were getting closer and closer. The Hummer's deflated tyre continued to smack against the road until it suddenly tore apart and flew off the vehicle altogether, leaving nothing but the rim. A huge shower of orange sparks streamed out from between the rim and the road, as the Hummer began to swerve from side to side. Losing the tyre had completely screwed up its turning ability, and Jake knew it. He took his foot off the accelerator and allowed the Humvee to get ahead of him. He then violently swerved to the right and smacked the Aston Martin into the rear left end of the Humvee. The absence of a tyre made it impossible for the vehicle to grip the highway and the impact by our Aston forced it to suddenly swerve to the left straight towards the central divide. However a lot of its momentum was now pushing it sideways and it went into a series of uncontrollable cartwheels, flipping over and over again as we sped away. I took one last look at the insane demonstration of why you don't fuck with physics, and we moved on.

Fyodorov had now managed to get pretty far ahead of us, but our waypoint was still showing us exactly where he was.  
"I see the Little Bird!" came the sudden shout of Gwen over our ear pieces. "Oh shit!" she suddenly screamed and we quickly found out why. A Hydra 70 rocket from the Little Bird, no doubt meant for us, hit the highway just behind our car. Even though it missed, we could feel the fierce vibrations from the explosion. Once the fireball it created subsided, a crater remained where it had hit. Unfazed by this, Gwen jumped her motorcycle right over the crater and sped towards our Aston Martin. Meanwhile we were now facing off against a black AH-6 Little Bird intent on destroying us. Malcolm was watching everything from the feed of the UAV hundreds of feet above the highway.  
"Keep going! Don't stop or you're dead!" he yelled to us through the ear pieces as a volley of Hydra 70 rockets soared from the rocket pods of the Little Bird, targeting us. Each one missed but caused a tremendous, fiery explosion that shook the Aston violently each time. Jake swerved from left to right, trying to evade the Little Bird. It then turned its two M134 Miniguns on us instead. I'd have much preferred it kept the rockets.  
We now found ourselves struggling to evade an endless stream of orange tracer as the two machine guns of the Little Bird churned out six thousand rounds a second. Each one of these rounds tore a little chunk out of the road and the helicopter never paused its firing, it was constant. It was flying about forty feet behind us and only twenty feet above the ground. Its machine guns were hitting anything that got in the way, even civilian vehicles.  
"Where the fuck are the police where you need them?!" shouted Jake as he violently pulled the steering wheel left and right to avoid the bullets. Of course plenty of the shots found their target and tore into the Aston Martin but miraculously it didn't alter the car's performance, though it did make the car look like a sieve.  
"It's now or never Jake, we've still got a job to do! Get us as close to Fyodorov as you can!" I shouted. Jake didn't have time to consider what I said, so he simply pressed down on the accelerator and sped forward as fast as he could with a very vicious attack helicopter pursuing him.

Not far behind us the Chicago Police Department were responding to what was going on too. Four police 2013 Ford Taurus' were about two hundred feet behind us, lights flashing and sirens blaring, wisely keeping their distance. The distance was increasing too, as our Aston Martin sped up to keep up with Fyodorov. The Little Bird wasn't letting up, and we still had to contend with two BMW M5s filled with heavily armed Eclipse operatives. Well, at least for a while.  
Speeding in-between the cars that hadn't scattered to get out of the way, Gwen was heading right for Fyodorov. With one hand on the handlebars, she reached down into her bike's compartment and pulled out her Uzi submachine gun. Smiling to herself she sped up as fast as the bike would allow and overtook Fyodorov and his convoy. But as she did so, she sprayed an entire magazine from the Uzi inside one of the BMWs, killing everyone inside. Every window shattered as the bullets ripped into the frail bodies inside. Just a few seconds later the driverless BMW smacked into the side of the highway, crumpling the front of the vehicle before spinning out of control. Jake came very close to crashing into the wreck but just managed to speed past.  
"What's your plan on the Little Bird?" I asked Jake, wiping fragments of the shattered windscreen from my now bloodied face. Jake, the genius driver he was, had already figured that out. He pressed hard on the brakes before suddenly speeding up again. This simple move didn't give the Little Bird pilot enough time to slow down, so he overshot us and flew right past. In the time it took for the helicopter to turn around to face us we'd already driven past which meant it had to turn around again and catch up. All these small amounts of extra time added up.  
"I swear you should've been in NASCAR or something" I told Jake, who looked at me.  
"I did a demolition derby once and got arrested for blowing up another guy's engine with a double barrelled shotgun" he said. I looked at him with an eyebrow raised but he wasn't wearing the face he always wore when he was bullshitting you.  
"You'll have some great stories to tell your grandkids, you know that?" I asked him.  
"If I survive that long" he replied, swerving past an eighteen wheeler truck. Just as he passed it, the huge trailer it pulled was ripped apart as a volley of Hydra 70 rockets struck it, the Little Bird strafing the highway in an attempt to take us out. The truck and its burning trailer jack knifed behind us, which had the decent effect of blocking the police on all the highway's lanes.

I leaned out from where the passenger door window used to be and aimed my Glock at the only remaining BMW M5. One of the Eclipse operatives locked eyes with me for a split second as he pointed his HK MP5K submachine gun directly at me while I pointed my Glock directly at him. He fired first and the bullets hit the hood of the car and the road just ahead of us, but Jake didn't swerve to avoid the shots. Instead he sped up as I fired back at the enemy operative. Finally Jake managed to make our battered Aston steady long enough for me to steady my breath and my aim. I lined up the gun's iron sights with his head and squeezed the trigger. The bullet flew from my car to his, and went right into his forehead, leaving a bloody bullet hole. His comrades aboard the car all began to open fire on us as we got closer, now within just twenty feet.  
As Jake continued driving, he glanced at me before looking back to the road. He then looked right back at me and stared, not having realised what he was seeing the first time. What he saw was me starting to clamber out of the window of the car as we were doing about seventy miles per hour.  
"What the hell are you doing?" he shouted, watching me climb out of the window. I glanced at the Little Bird that was quickly catching up.  
"Something I'll probably regret!" I replied, before preparing to jump. Jake looked ahead at the Eclipse BMW.  
"If you survive, which you won't! No pressure!" he shouted back to me and I gave him a thumbs up before leaping from the Aston Martin and grabbing hold of the side of the Eclipse BMW.

Now I was hanging onto a car full of people who wanted to shoot me, and said car was going very fast while I was being shot at by an attack helicopter. I needed to be either really lucky or really stupid to pull off what I was planning. Probably both.  
Before the Eclipse operatives inside the BMW could react to the fact that I'd just done one of the most insane things they'd ever seen, I climbed up the side of the car onto the roof. One Eclipse agent was quick to lean out of his window and try to shoot me off with his Uzi, but one bullet from my Glock in his eye seemed to make his reconsider. Jake was now driving the Aston Martin directly behind the BMW, with the Little Bird right behind him in pursuit. Without warning the Little Bird fired a single AGM-114 Hellfire guided anti-tank missile at Jake. Jake swerved out of the way just in time to avoid it, and now the missile was heading right for the BMW. Acting on instinct, I leapt from the BMW and landed on the hood of the Aston Martin as it sped down the highway. If the windscreen hadn't already been destroyed, I'd probably have gotten a concussion from hitting it.  
I turned to see the $68,000 dollar, high explosive missile slam right into the rear of the BMW, still occupied by at least three Eclipse agents. The entire vehicle simply exploded in an orange fireball that I could feel, heating up my skin to the point where I thought I'd get first degree burns.  
The burning wreckage of the BMW somersaulted through the air and bounced off the highway several times before finally coming to a rest. I watched for several seconds but I had more important things to focus on. The Little Bird was now flying just a few feet above the ground, and close to the Aston Martin. Still lying on the hood of the Aston, I looked at Jake who knew exactly what I was thinking.  
"Go for it" he said.

Jake suddenly swerved the Aston towards the helicopter and I made a leap of faith, somehow managing to grab hold of the Little Bird's landing gear and dangling from it, my feet within inches of scraping the road. The aircraft's co-pilot leaned out with a handgun pointing at me, put I grabbed the arm holding the pistol and tugged it as hard as I could, pulling him from the chopper and falling onto the tarmac below where his body cart wheeled from the force of the impact. I pulled myself up into the helicopter's cockpit and came face to face with the pilot. He took one hand off the controls to swing a punch at me, but I grabbed the arm and held it still before punching him in the face with my other arm. I looked forward for a split second and realised that by distracting the pilot the helicopter had drifted over the oncoming lane of the highway and an eighteen wheeler truck was heading right for us, its horn blaring. The pilot yanked the controls just in time and dodged the truck, only to be shot in the side of the head by my Glock. I pushed his body out of the aircraft and clambered into the pilot's seat.  
"Okay... I think I remember how to fly one of these things" I said to myself as I took hold of the controls. Flying a helicopter was like riding a bike. Granted, a flying, extremely deadly bike, but I could remember how to fly. I quickly swerved back onto the right side of the freeway and got Fyodorov's car locked in my sights. I sped towards it, catching up easily as Malcolm's voice came into my ear via the ear piece.  
"Kestrel! What the hell are you doing?" he asked.  
"Something stupid" I replied, before suddenly swinging the Little Bird round so it was flying sideways. I was just a few feet to the right of Fyodorov's Audi, so close I could see the whites of his eyes as he stared right at me.  
"Weren't expecting this were you bitch?" I said before pressing on the trigger.  
The two miniguns of the helicopter opened up and the rounds tore into the car, tearing it to pieces within seconds. Sparks flew everywhere as the glass shattered and huge chunks of the car eventually got torn off. There was no doubt in my mind that everyone inside that car was dead, and when it burst into flames a few seconds later it only proved my 'theory'.

Calmly I aligned the Little Bird with Jake's battered Aston Martin and jumped from the cockpit onto the roof, just managing to hold on. I watched as the pilotless helicopter smacked into the road and went into a spin, careering through the air as the rotor blades and tail snapped off. I clambered in through the window of the Aston and looked at Jake, who was staring at me.  
"You are a fucking idiot. And a fucking genius. How does that work?" he asked me. I shrugged. "Like, that was the stupidest fucking thing I've ever seen in my life. But it was also fucking awesome. Do it more often" he said. I smiled.  
"Words cannot express how high on adrenaline I am right now" I told him and he nodded, chuckling uncontrollably. I wasn't lying, my heart was in my mouth from beating so hard and I could feel my body shaking with I was on a sugar rush. Then Malcolm came into contact over the ear piece.  
"Kestrel" he said, his voice completely straight.  
"Malcolm?" I replied.  
"You are so getting promoted" he said, and then he was gone.

END OF CHAPTER

**Thank you for reading this, it's by far the biggest single chapter I've ever written. PLEASE leave a review so I know people are enjoying this and want to see more, or so I know where to improve. All feedback is welcomed and encouraged **


	2. To Kill A Kestrel

_P.M.C  
__Samuel E. Paxton_

Chapter II  
To Kill A Kestrel

Newmarket, Canada. 30 Miles Northwest of Toronto

To any outsider, Eclipse's Private Security Branch Command was an imposing building. Covering seven million square feet and built to a brutalist style with much of the exterior made up of glass, the fortress like, linear, blockish ten storey high structure was the dominant building in the Canadian town of Newmarket, built in the town centre. While it was more commonly referred to as the Brian Elliot Building its corporate name served as a reminder to anyone who forgot about what the building was about. It was headquarters of the Eclipse Private Security Branch; it was to Eclipse what the Pentagon was to the United States Government. Only a few hours ago the man in charge of the facility had been Nikolai Fyodorov but news of his death had become common knowledge within the company and, as was procedure, his replacement had arrived. Having been needed within hours the new Director of the PSB had been flown in all the way from Indianapolis aboard a corporate Westland Lynx, the fastest helicopter in the world. Civilians on the streets watched the black helicopter touching down on the roof's landing pad. As soon as the wheels softly settled on the helipad, an Eclipse PSB operative, dressed in a white shirt with a bulletproof vest over it (and a grey Glock visible in the holster), ran to the side of the chopper and slid the door of the passenger bay open. The new Director stepped out, not bothering to duck down to shield himself from the winds whipped up by the rotor blades, which the operative was doing.  
His name was Tyson Kurtz. Former US Navy SEAL and now in charge of the Private Security Branch. Wearing a classic grey two piece suit with a black tie, he seemed the epitome of class. His black skin was only interrupted by a small scar across his forehead that ran down to his temple. With piercing blue eyes and biceps visible even through his suit, he commanded respect and authority.  
"Welcome to Canada, sir!" the agent shouted over the din of the rotor blades, still at full power. "They're expecting you down at Operations Command, if you'll just follow me..." he continued, but the new Director walked right past him and headed for the external stairs that descended the top half of the building.  
"I know my way around here kid, I don't need a tour" came his reply, from a voice just as sharp as his features. The agent stopped in his tracks and watched his new commander disappear down the stairs.  
"Uh, okay!" he shouted back, though more to himself than to the Director. "Have fun down there!" he shouted sarcastically before turning back to the noisy helicopter and waving the pilot off aggressively. The Lynx was quick to take off again and leave.

"Director Kurtz, pleasure to finally meet you. Operations Command're waiting for you just down the hall" were the first words that greeted the Director once he arrived in the main building. Susan Cannon, Deputy Director of the PSB and Taskforce Chief. Essentially his second in command.  
"Good to see you're still in one shape after Colombia" replied Kurtz as they walked side by side down the corridor. Either side of them the walls were ultra thin glass, separating the corridor from offices that all seemed identical, all sporting the same shelves with the same desks and the same paper thin, white ultrabook laptops.  
"Don't act like you didn't see anything in Colombia. My truck got hit by a bit of shrapnel, meanwhile you're charging through Bogotáwithan M16" replied Cannon. Kurtz chuckled.  
"Good old civil wars, always gets the heart racing whether you're shooting at drug cartels or Colombian soldiers" he replied, not smiling. "Bad news about Nikolai" he continued.  
"Yeah... no-one really cares about him personally though. It's all about losing his skills that we're worrying about. You've got some big shoes to fill, Tyson" Cannon told him as they neared the Operations Command. "One more thing; you're commanding people thirsty for revenge. They don't take corporate assassinations kindly, whether it kills a janitor or the CEO" she said, turning to face him directly just in front of the door to Operations Command.  
"Then I'll get on with them just fine" Kurtz responded, before heading in front of Cannon and pushing open the door into Operations Command.

The room was filled with about fifteen personnel, almost all of them working on computers. The two large desks accommodated multiple people while the wall in front of them was covered in paper thin, Ultra High Definition TVs that showed live news reports and other events around the world. Cannon called out across the room.  
"Okay, listen up people! Our new Director has arrived, this is Tyson Kurtz. He'll be commanding all our operations from here on in" she said. Kurtz wasted no time in getting started.  
"That's right, now first things first. What do we know about Fyodorov's death?" he asked. One of the analysts across the room responded.  
"Not a whole lot of his body left to analyse, but that's not what caught our attention" he said, before beginning to type away at his laptop. "If you look here..." he began, and the main screens on the wall immediately began showing CCTV images from inside the Technology Innovation Demonstration Centre in Chicago. There were few people in any of the rooms. "This is approx twenty minutes before the demonstration began. But if we fast forward to about two minutes after it started..." he trailed off as the camera feeds degraded quickly into a mess of static.  
"What happened?" asked Kurtz.  
"Someone was jamming the CCTV. Five minutes later, we get our first reports of gunfire inside the building" said the analyst.  
"So whoever went in after Fyodorov had the tech to jam the security camera" said Kurtz, watching the screens.  
"That's right, so we couldn't find out who went in there" replied the analyst.  
"And this is as much as you've got?" asked Kurtz, beginning to sound annoyed.  
"For now, yes. We're still trying to crack the jam on the cameras, then we'll be able to find the missing footage" the analyst finished. Kurtz looked at the screens for several seconds before shaking his head in disbelief.  
"No wonder Fyodorov died with you lot" he said loudly so everyone would hear him. "Chicago has a Central Operating System, right?" he asked. The analyst nodded. "So break into it, find the nearest CCTV camera to the Demonstration Centre, take control of it, find the exact time when the gunfire was first reported and watch the building through that" he told them. The analysts seemed to be hesitating. "Now!" he shouted and everyone immediately got to work. The room quickly exploded into chatter as they worked to break into the Central Operating System.  
"Is this really the people I'm working with?" Kurtz muttered to Cannon. She smirked.  
"They're a lot better than you think. See that guy over there?" she pointed at one of the analysts on the left of the room.  
"Yeah, what of him?" Kurtz asked.  
"He was the one that found Bin Laden. Don't count these guys out yet" she said, still smirking. Kurtz was impressed, but didn't let it show on his face.  
"Got it!" came the triumphant shout from one of the analysts. Kurtz quickly turned to face the screen once more. Said screen quickly shifted to an impressively high quality view from a CCTV camera down the street from the Innovation Centre. Within seconds an Audi A6 sped past the camera, flanked by two BMW M5s.  
"That's Fyodorov" said one of the female analysts, referring to the Audi. A couple other analysts nodded in response.  
"We know he was chased by an Aston Martin, just need to catch the driver on cam" said Kurtz, watching the screen intently. About fifteen seconds passed, the room falling into unnerving silence. Then the easily recognisable form of an Aston Martin sped past the camera. The footage was quickly rewound before being played back at a fraction of its normal speed. The entire room watched the Aston Martin inch into the shot, frame by frame. Finally it was paused as they found a perfect view into the windscreen. And it was clear to everyone that there was two people inside, not one.  
"Yeah, definitely two people. Zoom in on the driver" instructed one of the analysts.  
The zoom took place, focusing on Jake's face. Several of the women in the room found it difficult not to wolf whistle as the image came into focus. Kurtz walked several paces towards the screen to get a better look.  
"Cross reference him through facial recognition" he ordered, not taking his eyes off Jake's face.  
"On it" was the response and the large screen changed to show Jake's face being scanned, before millions of images of millions of people began streaming through, being tested for correlation at a speed that would make computers of just five years ago green with envy.

Finally the computer found a match. A second, far better quality image of Jake's face came up. It was his passport picture.  
"Got a name?" asked Kurtz.  
"Jake Edwards... oh dear" the analyst trailed off. Kurtz snapped his head around to look at him.  
"What, what is it?" he asked.  
"See for yourself sir" replied the analyst, and the screen showed very clearly in red letters; "KNOWN CERBERUS CORPORATION OPERATIVE", the letters flashing as if they weren't getting enough attention already. Kurtz stared at the words, burning from the inside with anger.  
"I should've known..." he muttered to himself. "And the other one?" he asked, pointing to my face inside the Aston Martin.  
"Most likely Cerberus too, but there's no record of her in the company files. No name, no D.O.B, no official corporate affiliation" responded one of the analysts, typing frantically at his holographic keyboard.  
"So what, her face isn't showing up anywhere else?" asked Kurtz.  
"Not within Cerberus. She could be a mercenary working for them? It'd explain why they've no record of her" one of the analysts offered as a solution. This time Cannon was the one who responded.  
"No. A mission to assassinate a top ranking enemy official is never undertaken by a hired gun. Especially when we're talking about Cerberus, a company more powerful than a lot of governments. The only explanation for her not showing up is that her records don't exist, on purpose" she said with pursed lips.  
"So what, she's some kind of black ops assassin?" asked one of the analysts, a hint of sarcasm in his voice. Cannon chose to ignore the sarcasm and answer like he expected one.  
"It's possible, but there's no reason to use her alongside a regular agent who can be identified" she said.  
"You said her face isn't showing up within _Cerberus_.Run her face through every security camera feed over the last ten years" ordered Kurtz. He was met by faces of alarm and puzzlement.  
"Sir... that's trillions of terabytes of footage, it'd take hours to sift through all that" said one concerned looking analyst. Funny to think that ten years earlier it would have taken years. Kurtz took a second to consider.  
"Run her face through the camera of every location where we experienced any kind of incident" he ordered, and the analysts began typing away yet again. As they did so, Cannon leaned over to Kurtz.  
"What's this about?" she asked.  
"If she really is black ops, something tells me she's behind more than one assassination. And we've had a fair few" he told her. Out of the corner of his eye he could see her smile at his response. But his attention was quickly caught by a whoop of triumph from one of the analysts.

"Got it! Four months and six days ago she turned up in Times Square, Manhattan" he said. The images on the large screens clearly showed me among the crowd, easily missed if it wasn't for the technology that had caught me. "One hour later, guess what happens?" the analyst asked, but he didn't wait for anyone to answer. The perspective switched to an image most likely captured by a police camera, showing a pale, balding man in a business suit lying dead against a table with a single bullet mark in the side of his head. "Colonel Timothy Griggs, retired US Marine Corps and then second in command of our very own Special Security Command. Killed by a sniper bullet to the head in the Blue Note Jazz Club, Greenwich Village" the analyst finished. Kurtz could only shake his head as the pieces began to fall into place.  
"That's not the half of it" the analyst continued, and the screen changed once again. This time to the inside of a bank, viewed from a security camera. Four well armed people dressed in all black with balaclavas were in the middle robbing it. "Six months and three days ago. A branch of Germany's Deutsche Bank is robbed in Frankfurt, sixty eight million Euros taken. Four police officers dead. We zoom in on the one on the left, use eye recognition..." he said and the computer began scanning the figure's eye. It was cross referenced with my eye from the other image they had of me, and it was a perfect match.  
"Matches exactly! Her face pops up everywhere, scratch the surface just a tad and you'll find her" announced the analyst. The screen began to change to images showing what he was talking about. "Last month she showed up in Alaska, the same day and the same location where outspoken Cerberus critic Nelson Brown died. Brown was claiming he had information that would expose Cerberus but a gas leak at his home stuck him in a coffin before he could, also conveniently taking out the rest of his house including his hard drive and all computer backups. Five months, twenty nine days ago. She shows up yet again in Moscow. After leading police on a twenty mile car chase she escaped through the subways before popping up on the other side of the city the same day that the leader of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party died of an apparent drug overdose. The man was supposed to deliver a speech against corporate involvement in government affairs" continued the analyst. Kurtz was taken aback; he never expected to be dealing with someone like me. Had I known what was happening there, I probably would have been flattered that they were finally taking me so seriously.

"Two years ago she showed up under what was probably a fake name, 'Kate McReary', as security for the private yacht of the infamous dictator of Eritrea, Abassi Deedat. Then..." the analyst trailed off as the screen showed a clear security camera image of me standing over Deedat's frail body, his black and gold military uniform stained red from multiple gunshot wounds. "I think that's all the evidence you need" finished the analyst. There was silence for several seconds in the room as everyone soaked in the information. Several murder mysteries had just been solved right before their eyes, all of them giving me full, and rightful, credit. Finally the silence was broken by another analyst.  
"I think I found her name. Four years ago she appeared on the guest list for a private party at the Academy Awards where she was to meet with an actor about his arranged donations to Cerberus. She'd likely have been there under her real name to give a sense of trust" she said.  
"So her name is...?" asked Cannon.  
"Kestrel" answered the woman. "No last name it seems, though the nickname 'Scarlett' seems to be quite popular among Cerberus brass"  
"Catchy" replied Cannon. Kurtz was quick to take over the situation.  
"If Cerberus wants to play this game, we will too. They'll learn that it works both ways. After a mission like that, those agents should be getting debriefed at a major Cerberus facility. What's the nearest one?" he demanded.  
"That'd be, uh... their Milwaukee substation!" answered an analyst after a quick check on his laptop.  
"Wisconsin huh? Alright. Get a team prepped and ready within ten hours. We're hitting that building and we're hitting it today. Time for Cerberus to learn if they fuck with us, we'll fuck back" he said, which earned a few odd looks exchanged between the analysts.  
Unfortunately for me, Kurtz was right. I was there.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States  
Eleven Hours Later

Within the four storey high, modern substation in Milwaukee, I sat in a large meeting room. With me were Gwen and Jake. The three of us were being debriefed by Malcolm. By now I'd managed to get out of my previous business clothing and had replaced it with a black hoodie and some jeans. The hood was pulled up over my black-purple hair and my arms were crossed over my chest, which was probably really pissing Malcolm off since I looked exactly like the kind of slacker he probably tried to kill regularly in Cambridge. Now that I was in the same room as him, I could really appreciate just how menacing he seemed. He was in his early fifties with long creases all over his face. His greying hair wasn't showing any signs of balding but it wasn't his hair I focused on. His piercing though slightly bloodshot blue eyes were almost hypnotic when you stared into them for too long.  
"We came close to having to mop up a fucking hurricane of piss when you left a crashed helicopter on the Expressway" remarked Malcolm, his strong Scottish accent pulling me out of my thoughts and back to the real world.  
"Lovely image" replied Jake, his eyes appearing half closed. Malcolm ignored him.  
"But they don't know it had anything to do with us and we won't be commenting on it. Leaving an attack helicopter in the motorway isn't something PR unfucks you from very easily" he continued.  
"Aren't you worried about Eclipse trying to get back at us?" asked Gwen, her Welsh accent kicking in with every word.  
"I hoped you'd ask something like that, and my answer is no" Malcolm replied. "You don't need to worry your pretty, four kilogram head about anything because Uncle Malcolm has it covered" he told her.  
"Great, now I'm related to you" joked Jake, though all it got from Malcolm was a sharp look and Jake quickly fell quiet. Not out of fear, but out of knowing no-one needed an argument right now.  
"Anyway" continued Malcolm, getting the meeting back on track. "There is one thing we've got to worry about" he said, before presenting us with several photos of a black, heavily built man in military uniform. Unbeknownst to me at the time, this was Kurtz.  
"Okay, so who's this and why's he worth worrying about?" asked Gwen, studying one of the photos.  
"Name's Tyson Kurtz" replied Malcolm, arms crossed. "Fyodorov's replacement." Jake cut in.  
"Wait, they've replaced him already? Doesn't it take a while to name a successor?" he asked, an eyebrow raised.  
"Not this time. Fyodorov was murdered by 'unknown gunmen', so it's an emergency situation. If he was resigning, yes it'd take longer. But when there's a clear threat you need to have a leader at all times" Malcolm affirmed. I snorted in response.  
"Huh. Gun_men_", words which got me an amused look from Gwen.  
"That's all they've said about his death so far. They'll probably treat it as a terrorist incident or something. Announcing we've attacked them won't get them anywhere. It'll put them in a world of government and media scrutiny" said Malcolm.  
"So why's this Tyson Kurtz guy worth worrying about?" Gwen asked a second time.  
"He was a close friend to Fyodorov, so it's only obvious that he'll have a good deal of interest in finding out who was responsible for his death. Eclipse has the resources, the money and the technology to find out. Think of their Private Security Branch as a more covert version of the American military, but better funded."  
"How is that even possible?" Jake asked, more to himself than to Malcolm as he looked at one of Kurtz's photos. Malcolm answered anyway.  
"Corporations can be more powerful than governments, and they don't have to abide by the same laws as governments, while still being able to exert a lot of influence on them" said Malcolm. "Kurtz can take advantage of that in plenty of ways. Trust me, he knows how. Fyodorov was a genius but he taught Kurtz a lot when it comes to the business world. The private military world he's now in charge of, he knows all about it already"  
"How so?" I asked.  
"He's a former Navy SEAL, was until 2009" answered Malcolm.  
"Until 2009? Why'd he leave?" asked Jake.  
"He got discharged after killing two Iraqi civilians" Malcolm answered bluntly. I could hear an intake of breath from Jake.  
"Nasty" he said, shaking his head.  
"When it comes to private militaries, a lot of the leaders have an... interesting past" Malcolm told us.  
"What about you then? You're in charge of Special Operations, how's your past looking? You were in MI6 before Cerberus" I said. Malcolm chuckled.  
"There's no Iraqi blood on my hands. Well, not civilian anyway. Let's just say I was really busy during the Cold War."

Meanwhile on the ground floor of the building, the receptionist in the lobby was busy on her desk laptop, though not working, like she was being paid $30,000 a year for. Instead her computer screen gave away that she was absent mindedly playing Angry Birds. Eight years old and it was still massively popular. However her attention to the game quickly left when she heard the sound of the automatic door into the lobby sliding open. Quickly minimising the game, she looked up over her desk, not expecting what she saw. Five men, wearing body armour and balaclavas were heading right towards her. They all wielded advanced looking rifles, though one was armed with a SPAS-15 shotgun with a red dot sight. They split up into two groups without a word; two of the men heading right towards her, but their weapons weren't raised. They seemed to be ignoring her. The initial shock of seeing them quickly went away as she realised they were paying no attention to her. But then without warning one of them reached into his flak jacket and pulled out a QSZ-92 handgun, with a long silencer on the end. He fired right at her and the bullet ripped through her clothes and into her chest. The last noise she heard was the quiet, suppressed shot of the pistol. The intense, sudden pain seemed to knock her down more than the impact itself as, after a splatter of blood hit her laptop, she staggered backwards before collapsing against the wall and lying on the floor in a sitting position, dead. The Eclipse operatives had arrived.  
"We can access security cameras from here" said one of the men, standing behind the desk where the woman had just been. He reopened the Internet on the laptop. "Heh, Angry Birds" he remarked before closing the game and opening the building's security systems.  
"Found anything?" asked another of the operatives. They were covering all entrances into the room while he got into the security.  
"Got it! Okay, I've found the girl!" he said, seeing the meeting I was in through the security camera inside. "She's in... uh... fourth floor, west side. Office of Malcolm Smith. Looks like we'll be bagging the Cerberus Chief of Special Operations too!" the agent declared.  
"Good, good" replied the other operative, the lieutenant in charge. "Get teams Bravo and Charlie to standby, once they see the fireworks they come in to confirm the kill" he told another operative. "Move quickly, move quietly" he said, before they headed into the building.  
It wasn't long until they reached the mechanical room. The few black uniformed security guards they'd run into were now lying on the floor with holes in their heads and chest, as well as any and all Cerberus employees they'd come across. Two of the operatives were hauling backpacks as well as the rest of their equipment. They finally came across the door that led to the mechanical room. The lieutenant took out a keycard he'd taken from one of the dead security guards and swiped it through the keycard lock. After the lock made a beep and showed a green light, the door unlocked. Four of the operatives went inside, while the fifth remained outside.  
"I'll keep watch, I'll let you know if anything happens" he told the rest of the squad as they descended down some stairs into the basement of the building.  
"No need, we'll hear the gunshots" the lieutenant muttered to himself. The four men headed through a dark corridor before reaching the mechanical room. The only person inside was the stationary engineer. He swung round to face the four men approaching.  
"What the hell are you doing here, this room is-" he began but was interrupted by a silenced bullet to the chest, and he fell to the ground.  
"Alright, everyone grab C4 off Daniels and Martinez" ordered the lieutenant. Daniels and Martinez were taking off their backpacks and removing the huge amount of C4 they'd been carrying with them. "Get C4 in place on the air handlers, the boiler, the piping, and the backup electric generators. Should knock out all the building's systems and start a second Nagasaki in here" the lieutenant ordered. The operatives got to work, attaching the explosives to the different systems throughout the room. Within a few minutes the boiler, the generators, the pipes and the air handling units had C4 all over them.  
"All done here" announced one of the operatives.  
"Alright, let's get out of here" said the lieutenant, before making an announcement to all operatives over his ear chip. "All Viper teams, this is Viper Actual. Explosives are primed; we're vacating the building now. Standby" he said, as the men made their way quickly out of the room. They met up with the fifth operative standing guard and heading back to the lobby, before going outside and onto the street. A waiting armoured van, filled with weapons, was parked just outside and they climbed in through the back. The van quickly sped away down the road, away from the building. The lieutenant held the detonator button in his gloved hand, watching the building get further and further away. Once they'd gotten to a safe distance, he pressed the detonator.

In the mechanical room, forty pounds of C4 detonated simultaneously. The entire room was filled with a gargantuan fireball which consumed just about everything inside, heating the room to 5,000 degrees within seconds. However it was when the C4 went off on the pipes that everything went mad. Unknown to the Eclipse agents, the pipes were gas rather than water. They had intended to knock out the sprinkler systems but instead had accidentally blown up the gas pipes. The gas immediately exploded, causing a chain reaction throughout the building. Much of the ground floor shook violently as the pipes exploded all around. But then the boiler, already heavily damaged, also exploded. The massive explosion generated created a fireball that had nowhere to go but up. The roof of the mechanical room was blown to pieces as what was essentially a massive bomb went off underneath the building. Windows all over the building shattered as the fireball made it outside, expanding out into the open air like clouds of bright orange gas. Once outdoors the fireball snaked up the building from all sides, making the substation look like it was being swallowed in a fiery black hole.  
The fireballs on the outside soon calmed down, but it was completely different on the inside. Every floor was heavily damaged, with the ceiling caving in at some parts. The hundred or so people working inside were largely dead, their blackened corpses littering the burning rooms of the building. It was miracle it hadn't collapsed completely.

Just minutes earlier, the meeting was still going.  
"So do we have to kill Kurtz now too?" Jake asked Malcolm.  
"Maybe, maybe not" Malcolm replied. "He's dangerous, far more so than Fyodorov ever was. Eclipse got a lot more ruthless when they decided to put him in charge. Don't underestimate him. We're on high alert right now as it is, some kind of retaliation for killing Fyodorov is inevitable, but only if they find out who was responsible. Which they won't."  
The moment Malcolm finished saying that sentence there was a sudden, enormous rumble that shook the entire building. An ear popping, muffled explosion could be heard directly below. A second later the windows shattered and I felt shards flying right into my face. As the building continued to rumble violently I was sure an earthquake was happening, but I quickly realised it was an explosion as the room turned orange from the light of a fireball rising up outside. The force of the explosion threw me from my seat and I landed hard on the ground. I couldn't see what was happening to everyone else but I could feel the room heating up enormously, like I was inside an oven. Still lying on the floor I could hear the walls falling apart around me, and thought the building was collapsing. As I struggled to get to my feet, a second explosion went off but this time on the same floor we were on. I was thrown to the ground once more before blacking out.

I don't know how long I was unconscious but when I came to, I still felt incredibly hot. By now it was understandable as I could see that there was fire all around me. The entire room was soaked in an orange glow and the wall of the room had collapsed, showing the rest of the fourth floor which was also covered in fire. The entire building was an inferno and I was lying in the middle of it all. Still lying on my back I tried to take a few deep breaths but instead inhaled the smoke. I quickly descended into a violent coughing fit, while rolling over onto my stomach to shield my face from the intense heat. For about twenty seconds I lay on the floor, unmoving. Feeling an intense pain on my face, I brought my hand to it to try and pull shards of glass out, thinking that was the source of the pain. But there was no glass embedded in my skin, though I could feel fresh blood running down my face. I looked down at the floor and saw a few shards of glass scattered below me. With them I could just about see my reflection and was quick to realise that a stream of hot red blood was trickling down the left side of my face from cuts in my forehead. My hair was singed and I had several painful burn marks all over my face, and many more across my body. Much of my clothes were singed and it was painful to move. But I had to get out.  
I returned to lying on my back, hoping I wouldn't discover my legs were broken when I tried to get up. As I successfully managed to roll over, I heard the sounds of movement nearby. Malcolm had managed to get to his feet, bloodied and clearly burnt across his body but he could stand. He swept his eyes across the burning room before seeing me. I spluttered violently several times as I again inhaled the smoke, but he was already on top of me and holding my hand in his. I felt him pulling me up and I slowly managed to get to my feet. My legs still worked and I could stand, but upon doing so I became very dizzy, my head feeling like it was swirling around. Malcolm was holding me steady, making sure I wouldn't fall over. Finally I kept my balance and he let go. My vision adjusted to the brightness of the fire all around us and I saw him looking at me, concerned.  
"You can hold for now, get up!" he shouted, trying to be heard over the roar of the flames. I took several seconds to answer.  
"What were you saying that they won't find us?" I asked, and he smiled.  
"Yeah, you're okay" he said with a pat on my shoulder. My attention was distracted by the sound of coughing. "Shallow breaths only! Inhale too deep and you're dead!" I heard Malcolm shout as he rushed over to Gwen, who was trying to get to her feet with the help of Malcolm's desk. Meanwhile I was already running to Jake, who was lying on his back with blood splattered across the front of his shirt. His eyes blinked several times before he looked up at me properly.  
"Kestrel... you're banged up" he remarked. He seemed okay for someone with what looked like a bad wound across his chest, judging by the blood on his shirt. He caught me looking anxiously at the shirt. "Don't worry, it's not mine" he said about the blood, before turning his attention to my bloodied face, still oozing fresh blood. "In fact... I think it might be yours" he said, biting his lip.  
"No worries, my blood is great" I replied jokingly, holding out a hand to help him up.  
"I'd agree, but that'd sound creepy" he said back, taking my hand and I helped pull him to his feet. There weren't a lot of people that could be so calm while in the middle of a burning building. Malcolm came up behind me, giving me the fright of my life as he tapped me on the shoulder. I swung round and Malcolm quickly held both hands in the air to show he wasn't someone trying to attack me. It was only natural for me to be on my guard after being in a building that'd been bombed.  
"You okay Jake?" asked Malcolm.  
"Worry about yourself old man" replied Jake, smirking. Malcolm couldn't help but smile. "Is Gwen okay?" Jake then asked. Malcolm didn't need to answer as Gwen emerged from behind Malcolm's desk, holding a small MAC-10 machine pistol in one hand. She held up a hand to show herself.  
"What the hell happened?" she shouted over the roaring of the nearby fires, which were everywhere.  
"Felt like a bomb to me" Jake shouted back.  
"You said they wouldn't find us!" Gwen shouted over to Malcolm, pointing at him.  
"Maybe I was wrong" Malcolm replied.  
"Yeah, _maybe_" Jake retorted. "You got any more weapons here?" he asked Malcolm.  
"One second" Malcolm replied, going to a nearby cabinet that had been knocked over by the explosion. "Here's hoping they're not all broken... no, we're good!" he announced as he opened the cabinet and pulled out two Uzis and an AA-12 shotgun.  
"Bags the shotgun!" shouted Jake, and Malcolm tossed the black AA-12 to him. Jake caught it in one hand.  
"Do you really need that much personal defence in your office?" I asked Malcolm.  
"Look around for a few seconds, then ask me that question again" he replied without looking at me. I knew what he meant.  
"I hope you've got a plan" said Gwen, chambering her machine pistol.  
"Get out the building sounds like a good idea" said Malcolm.  
"Right through all the fire" Jake replied.  
"Who knows, maybe I'll find someone's wallet" I said, before walking through the sizeable hole in the wall left there by the explosion. The other three were quick to follow. Once I'd made it through the hole, I found myself surrounded by fire. Several bodies lay scattered around the place, burned beyond recognition.  
"This is a fucking mess" I heard Jake mutter as we tried to navigate through the burning building.  
"Where're the stairs?" I asked.  
"I don't know, this place looks real different when it's all fucking burning" Jake replied. It was difficult to keep watch for enemy movement thanks to the fire, with the fumes burning our eyes and making them water. We were forced to take turns closing our eyes for several seconds to try and keep them from drying out, or at least that's what it felt like they were doing. We finally found the stairs after navigating the burning rooms, but I was alerted to the sounds of people coming up.  
"Shit, take cover!" I hissed, and everyone quickly tried to find something to hide behind that wasn't on fire, which was easier said than done. I hid behind a desk, which was blackened but not on fire. Peeking out from behind it were two Eclipse operatives in full black combat gear including military tactical helmets, balaclavas, bulletproof vests and shoulder and knee pads. They both held ACR assault rifles with ACOG sights.  
"No way there's anything alive up here, it's like Hell" I heard one of them say.  
"We've gotta sweep the area, they might still be alive" the other answered, beginning to walk forwards and further into the burning rooms.  
"Christ, I'm burning up here. Why we wearing this much shit!? Doesn't help that it's all black!" the other yelled. At that moment I felt Jake pat me on the arm. I turned my head to see him crouching behind the desk next to me.  
"You take the first shot" he said, not needing to whisper since the fires were so loud.  
"Always the gentlemen" I replied, before leaning out from behind the desk and carefully taking aim with my Uzi at one of the Eclipse soldiers. The moment I reached out my arm began to feel like it was burning, thanks to the nearby fires, but I ignored it.  
"Three, two, one" Jake counted down. On the beat after he said "one", I fired. A quick squeeze of the trigger expelled four bullets in quick succession, going right through the side of the soldier's head and throwing up a red mist all around him. At almost exactly the same time Jake fired, causing my ear to ring as his fully automatic AA-12 shotgun viciously fired two rounds at the other soldier, the rounds ripping into his chest as if the body armour wasn't even there. Both soldiers fell to the ground like ragdolls and the four of us made a move for the stairs. We descended two steps at a time but the moment we rounded the corner and reached the third floor, several bullets flew right past my head and hit the wall behind me. More Eclipse operatives were here.

"Watch it!" I shouted, and dived onto my stomach to take cover behind a metal pillar as bullets whizzed past. Several Eclipse soldiers were on the opposite side of the room, all armed with AK-74s. They fired in a coordinated pattern; at all times there would be at least two soldiers not firing, so they could open fire when the rest needed to reload. This meant there was a constant stream of bullets coming at us. Gwen and Malcolm soon joined Jake and I behind the pillar and what was left of several blackened desks, with Gwen taking pot-shots at the well equipped soldiers on the other side of the room.  
"Got any fucking wonderful ideas?" Malcolm shouted over the deafening noise of gunfire.  
"I always have ideas!" I shouted back, before crawling across the boiling floor to the end of the desks. I leaned out and took aim at one of the Eclipse agents with my Uzi before firing. The bullets ripped through his abdomen and a river of blood spurted out with a fountain as he fell backwards onto the ground with a thud. Almost immediately his friends saw me and all fired at once. I managed to get back behind the desks just in time, only for a hail of bullets to rip through them easily. Realising that I was practically guaranteed to be shot, I was screaming as the bullets tore past so close I could hear them whistle through the air. I wasn't sure why I was screaming exactly, I'd never known myself to react like that to fear. Whatever reason, it certainly helped expel some frustration. I felt Gwen hit me on the shoulder and I swung my head round to see her behind me.  
"Move it! I'll cover you!" she shouted, trying to be heard as the gunfire continued to shrink our cover.  
"You so owe me a tenner if I get shot!" I shouted back, before bolting it. As I did so, I felt Gwen pat my ass for good luck. As she did.  
I ran across the room to another set of desks as the Eclipse agents fired on me. I could feel the bullets shooting past just behind me as they turned their guns to follow me while I ran, turning the wall behind me into a mess of bullet holes. Gwen fired twice and brought down two of the Eclipse operatives in quick succession, but it wasn't good enough. I was within a couple of metres of getting to some new cover when an Eclipse bullet tore through my shoulder. As I fell sideways, I could feel time slowing down and from the corner of my eye could see the bullet pushing its way out of the back of my shoulder in a fountain of blood. I fell hard right into the desk I was supposed to have taken cover behind, crushing it like matchwood before tumbling onto the floor. The searing pain in my shoulder threatened to overwhelm me as blood leaked out like a broken pipe. I crawled behind the desks, narrowly avoiding being killed by the bullets that continued to come my way. I pressed my right hand against the wound in my left shoulder, trying to stop the bleeding. Slowly the pain started to subside. One of the more useful augmentations we agents had were nanobots that floated through our blood. They released anaesthetic at any major wounds, before working together to rapidly heal the wound. It would probably take about fifteen minutes for the skin over the wound to heal. A lot longer for all the injured flesh inside.

By the time I was concentrating on where I was again, Gwen had reached me, looking panicked.  
"You okay?!" she asked me frantically.  
"You bitch. You stupid bitch" I said in a frustrated voice, not meaning it by still voicing my evident disapproval of her plan.  
"Sorry hun" she replied, recognising through my comment that I was fine. "The anaesthetic'll kick in soon"  
"Already has. You owe me a tenner" I said as I regained concentration, the pain subsiding faster and faster. Gwen was achieving a miracle of multitasking by keeping conversation while shooting at the remaining Eclipse operatives.  
"You can use it to help buy a treadmill" she shouted to me. She caught my confused look and explained. "When I smacked your ass, it seemed a little chubbier than normal" she said.  
"You remember what my ass feels like?" I shouted back.  
"It's hard to forget!" she replied, smiling. It took me a few seconds to come up with an adequate reply.  
"Fuck you"

Finally, apart from the ever present roaring flames and the escalating volume of chunks of ceiling hitting the floor, there was silence. The Eclipse agents lay sprawled across the floor, blood oozing from bullet wounds across their bodies.  
"We're clear. Onwards comrades!" shouted Jake, his last sentence given a surprisingly good fake Russian accent.  
"How much further now?" Gwen asked as we headed for the stairs. Malcolm replied.  
"Ground floor is down here. By the looks of all this shit, we got our hurricane of piss eventually" he remarked. Exactly what he meant I wasn't sure. But as we turned a corner on the stairs, we found it had been completely blocked off by rubble.  
"Is there another way out?" asked Gwen. Jake responded by kicking the pile of rubble fiercely, only to quickly retreat once he did so and sit on a step.  
"That hurt?" I asked, smirking.  
"Yes..." Jake admitted begrudgingly, stroking his dead leg.  
"Can we dig our way out?" Gwen asked. Malcolm was already hitting the pile of rubble with a long stick he must have found lying somewhere.  
"If Haitians can do it, we can too" he replied brightly.  
"Okay, that's offensive on several levels" came Gwen's sharp reply, though Malcolm paid no attention whatsoever.  
"Fuck this" I said, before pulling a hand grenade from my pocket, pulling the pin out and lodging it in the rubble.  
"What the fuck?!" yelled Malcolm, as everyone charged up the stairs to get out of the way. They just managed to get out of the way before the grenade exploded, sending dust flying everywhere. A neat hole had been made in the pile of rubble.  
"You vinegar faced, spunk balloon bitch!" yelled Malcolm. I merely smiled innocently at him, which seemed to make every vein in his neck pop out, turning a sickly shade of purple as if someone had spilt Ribena all over him.  
"You had a grenade on you this _whole _time?" asked a similarly confounded Jake.  
"Yes. I thought it might be useful. And it was. So don't bitch at me, now we're not trapped" I said calmly, still smiling innocently like a little girl. I dashed for the hole in the rubble and began to make my way through it like a rat. On the other side I could see the lobby of the building, itself also aflame and littered with parts of the upper floors that had collapsed. As I clambered through the hole, making sure I wasn't going to gouge myself on any nails, I felt someone smack my ass yet again. This time it was deliberately hard.  
"That's for the grenade throwing dust in my eyes" came Jake's voice. I tried to kick out but he caught my leg and held it still, before hitting my hindquarters a second time, though far more lightly. I protested, mostly playing along, but it ended when I heard Malcolm's annoyed voice saying "Is this really what my black ops agents do?"

Once I finally managed to clamber through the hole, I waited for Jake to come next. Sadly no-one smacked his ass for me but that didn't surprise me. Malcolm wasn't exactly the most likely person to do that, and Gwen would never do it when she was on her own with him. Being a good sport, mostly, I held out my hand and helped pull Jake through the hole. He smiled at me.  
"How's your butt?" he asked.  
"Wouldn't you like to know" I began, but was interrupted when a bullet suddenly hit the concrete that made up the rubble, breaking a small piece off. There were Eclipse agents in the lobby that I'd never noticed.  
"Fuck!" Jake yelled, grabbing me by the waist and pulling me to the ground. I fell on top of him, eyes closed, and when I opened my eyes I found him looking up at me while I lay on him in a very awkward position.  
"This is awkward" I said, ignoring the bullets flying past our ears.  
"You crushed my testicles" was Jake's reply as he rolled over in pain. I was on my own for this shootout. Taking out my Uzi once more, I opened fire on the Eclipse agents. I was surprised by how easily they were going down. They were only armed with handguns and were dressed in suits, unlike the soldiers we'd encountered earlier. They went down like bowling pins. It was only the last agent who put up any true resistance, and by then Jake had recovered from his man-injury to join me in the firefight. Realising we were too exposed by now, I led Jake to the reception desk. Behind it I found the body of Cathy, the receptionist, lying on the floor in a pool of blood that was soaking into her clothes.  
"Poor girl" said Jake as he checked her vital signs. However we didn't have time to mourn; we were still taking fire. Firing in tandem, I finally managed to strike the agent in the stomach as he stood up to fire, totally exposing himself. The centre of his white polo shirt suddenly turned red as blood splattered against the inside. Before he even fell to his knees, a well placed bullet by Jake found its way right into his forehead, almost cracking the top of his skull right off and showering the nearby area with blood.  
"Sexy" I remarked, complimenting his shot. Jake deliberately misread it.  
"You have some weird fetishes" Jake replied as he reloaded.  
"You don't know nothing yet" I said back. Jake immediately stopped reloading and looked at me. I stuck my tongue out at him. "Where's the other two?"  
"Coming. I think Gwen's claustrophobic so getting her through that hole'll be a nightmare for Malcolm" Jake told me. "How's your shoulder by the way?" I felt where the gunshot wound had been with my hand. It felt slightly numb but the nanobots appeared to have almost totally healed it.  
"I might have another sexy scar, but it's alright" I told him. He smiled, before his attention was caught by the sound of a car engine approaching fast.  
"The fuck is that?" he asked, before 'it' revealed itself.

Without warning a black van sped right through the glass wall, shattering it in a spectacular shard shower. But it kept speeding right at us. I had only a split second to react. Jumping on top of the large lobby desk, I stood atop it and unloaded my Uzi on the driver's side of the windscreen. Jake copied me, but it didn't slow the van down. It smashed right into the desk, crushing it against the wall and turning it as thin as Nicole Richie. The van, now decorated with bullet holes, stood still with steam hissing out of the radiator.  
"What the flying fuck was that?" came a familiar voice. Malcolm and Gwen appeared at the bottom of the stairs. While Gwen ran to Jake and I, Malcolm merely surveyed the devastated scene of the lobby, which looked like a repeat of Dresden.  
"I'm not paying for this" was all he had to say, before making his way to the exit. Rather than use the door, he simply walked through the large hole left by the Eclipse van.  
"They seriously tried to crash into us" said Jake as our feet hit the floor once again.  
"And they kinda succeeded" I replied as we followed Malcolm.

Once we left the building, we weren't too surprised not to find any emergency vehicles nearby. Eclipse was probably holding them up. There was, however, a large crowd of civilians that had gathered to watch the structure burn down. Taking a look at the building on the outside showed just how much damage it had sustained. It was burning to a crisp, and it was incredible to think that just moments ago we had been inside. Our enjoyment of the hellish spectacle was cut short when I saw movement in the corner of my eye. Swinging round to face it, I saw a suited man sprinting away down the street. I immediately realised he must be Eclipse, and chased after him.

"Kestrel, where you going?" I heard Jake call after me. I didn't respond, focusing only on chasing him down. I ran down the sidewalk, catching up fast before he looked over his shoulder and saw me. Immediately he turned to the left and ran across the road, narrowly avoiding being hit by a taxi. I followed, sliding right over the taxi's hood before hitting the ground running. As I neared the sidewalk, I drew my Uzi and fired off several shots into the air. I hoped that these would convince him to stop, but it had the opposite effect and encouraged him to run faster. There was screaming in the street as civilians ran for safety, believing they were caught in the middle of a gunfight. The Eclipse operative continued to run before I saw him reaching into the inside of his jacket. I dived behind a parked Audi S8 as he drew a Glock from his jacket and fired several shots off. None of them came close to hitting me, his hand was far too shaky. I returned fire but the rounds just missed him, instead hitting a parked van as he took cover behind a parked car further down the street. We began exchanging fire from opposite sides of the sidewalk, our bullets smashing windshields and leaving holes in the parked cars but not hitting our true targets. But finally I spotted a window of opportunity and I unloaded my entire magazine into his position. The suppression tactic worked perfectly, and he lost his nerve. He tried to run from cover to a better position but was too slow. A burst of my Uzi let a few bullets find their way into his stomach. He fell backwards onto the floor, blood dripping from his wounds and turning his clothes bright red. I ran to him and, seeing that he was reaching for his Glock, kicked it away and it slid across the street. I knelt down next to him.  
"Who the fuck are you? Who are you working for?" I demanded. Through his heavy breathing as he fought to stay alive, he managed a laugh.  
"You ain't that bright are ya, bitch?" he managed to jeer, despite the lines of blood dripping out of his mouth. "You don't know the size of the hornet's nest you kicked in Chicago?" he asked. I shook him angrily.  
"What are you on about?! Tell me or there'll be a fuckload of lead in you" I told him.  
"I'm already dead... this is only the beginning" he managed, before going limp. I dropped him to the floor before a whirring sound nearby caught my attention. I looked up to see a nearby CCTV camera turning to look right at me.

At Eclipse's Private Security Branch Command, Kurtz and the intelligence team watched the main screen in silence as the feed from the CCTV camera showed by standing over the dead body of one of their agents. The last thing they saw was me raising my Uzi to the camera, before the muzzle flashed yellow and the feed cut. There were several tense seconds of silence from Kurtz's voice filled the room.  
"Spread the word to every mercenary and bounty hunter out there. Kill this... 'girl'... and twenty million dollars is theirs."

Please review Thank you

"Spread the word to every mercenary and bounty hunter out there. End the life of this girl and the equivalent of their home country's GDP is theirs. This is war"


End file.
